A little RoP video test

[Solitaire]

I've had the itch to do an RoP video with my alternate hatchie for a while now. To that end, I started learning a few more things about the client, such as popping off the ascension energyball at will and figuring out stuff that I can do with the camera. I already have the music that I'd like to use in it. So I did a bit of filming on the Peak of Storms with my main, /setscaled down to 75%, and did a quick edit together of a test of one of the scenes I've been thinking of and timed it to the music while learning the editing program. The complete movie is not going to happen any time soon, especially cause there is a very good chance of packing up and moving 1000+ miles in the next couple of weeks. But I was so pleased with the results of this initial test that I thought it would be nice to post it to get some initial feedback. It is a bit too dark, the ascension effect blacks out most of the light but I have a workaround for that later on. Anyway, here is the link and let me know what you think. http://home.comcast.net/~jd-chris/roptest.wmv

[Tcei]

Its very good from what I could see. I dont know if its just my comp or what but the scene is very dark, 'bout all I saw was the rop ball and you rising out of it. everything else was either completely black or nearly that.

*rereads the rest of the post* Oh...wait, heh. Good luck with your move and I hope to see the finished vid one day. I've been working on a video of my hatchies - eventual- ascention.

[Khetienn]

That looks like it'll be a very nice vid when you're done with it; and I like the music choice!

[Solitaire]

and I like the music choice!

Thanks. I was going to put it in the first post but forgot. The music is called "Run Free" from the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack. Pretty good all around, if you are into movie soundtracks.

[Spirit]

Thanks. I was going to put it in the first post but forgot. The music is called "Run Free" from the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack. Pretty good all around, if you are into movie soundtracks.

Very dramatic video!

Spirit is a Great movie for when I feel like rebelling against the world. It has found a place among the bunch of dvd's that go with me everywhere.

Rakku

[Solitaire]

I decided to go ahead with the project for right now and instead of using my alt, I edited some of the game files to make myself appear to be a hatchie again. I wanted to get the alt to L100 before I started this so that he could take on, or appear to take on all the opponents in the RoP one on one. But I came to realize that he is a dark colored dragon and almost completely disapears in dark scenes. Even tricking the game into giving him the sunscope 6 effect does not help enough with that.

I also realized the other day that having him appear solo through the whole thing would not have as much effect. So I'm wondering how many would be interested if I make a casting call for adults and ancients to show up somewhere in Istaria for a boring half hour of flying around, going back and doing it again over and over while I shout orders and load up my hard drive with footage. I think it would be great to have a shot of the sky full of dragons flying around. I won't be ready for that for a few weeks, I think. But if several are interested, it might make a good video. I was able to Fraps an ascension with about 25 sitting dragons on the screen and it actually held a good frame rate, so it could work out nice. If enough are interested, I'll put up a notice in the dragon forum.

I'll see if there is some way to get a bunch of hatchlings in the game as well. Maybe have a bunch of them running together on the ground while I fly over. Will see what happens.

[Tcei]

I wish fraps would work for me like it used to. currently it causes alot of stuttering when I try to use it in game. I've tried experimenting with different frame rates and settings in game but it just lags awfuly for me Good luck on your vid! I look forward to seeing it

[Lunarya]

What programs did you use to film and put it all together?

[Solitaire]

Fraps for filming. Premier for editing and rendering. And I'll be using VirtualDub to encode it down to something of a more reasonable size, though I have to learn whats best in that program yet. It confuzzled me.

[Solitaire]

Bah, didn't remember fast enough to be able to edit my last post.

I'm going to need to get some footage of a Crystal Golem, Esh and the Entombed Soul. Will need a hatchling on the quest to get them to spawn. If anyone on Chaos doing the Lunus RoP (or Helian also for the Crystal Golem) would like me to lend a claw in exchange for backing out of frame and letting me take a few shots, just let me know. A PM here or in the game will do. You'll get a spot in the credits and I'll be happy to film your ascension for you when the time comes.

[Lunarya]

I'm going helian, but I am only 22/19

[Khetienn]

My char Waterdancer will be doing the Lunus RoP as soon as I get his hoard up some; he's 29/29 with about 190K hoard.

[Solitaire]

Cool. Just let me know when you need help with Esh and the Entombed Soul. Would be helpful if you have a couple of body guards along with you cause I'll ask that you step back a ways so you don't appear in the shots. Could put you in a bit of danger if you did not have someone there to watch your back. I will have the GUI off while filming, so I would not be able to see a call for help until after I think I have what I need.

I was not really going to show this until after I was done, but I was excited to see Lantua's vid and it made me want to jump the gun. So here is a rough cut of the first 2 minutes of mine as it stands so far. Everything before the hermit dragon is pretty much set, though I'm going to tweak the titles and one or two other shots. Everything hermit and after is going to be redone quite a bit. The Storms Shadow fight is much better in the current edit, though I don't have a downloadable version of it yet. Hopefully my ISP does not freak out at several people downloading a 17 meg file.

http://home.comcast.net/~jd-chris/rough_cut4.wmv

Note: The link may not stay active for more than a couple of days as I will be putting up a new copy for review by a couple of friends who are acting as sounding boards for me.

[Lunarya]

....0.0 holy crap!!! That is amazing, can't wait for the real thing! How did you movie his head and do the /selfexam at the end ?

[Solitaire]

You can get the head to turn by turning on and off the mouselook option and just using the camera controls to move the camera about. The head will follow the camera but the character won't move. The /selfexam emote exists in your game folders, but it was never hooked up to a command. There are 3 more that I've found for dragons. The "hiss" one and two flight emotes that really don't work all that well, though I might see if I can use them somewhere in the flight sequences. Been a while since I've seen them, but the first is a scratch while flying and the second is a very quick look down. There are other animations that we never see that I might use as well. Dodge and evade are two of them that I can recall. I have not yet experimented with the eat emotes to see what they look like. There is an emote pack around somewhere that you can use, they will enable hiss and selfexam plus there are a few that are modified versions of the other emotes. I'm on my laptop and don't have any of the emotes enabled, but I'll get the file tomorrow and write a post on how you can enable them. The thing about it is that others have to have the modified files as well or they won't see them.

I sure wish I could find a Granny 3D plugin for Maya. Would be able to experiment with creating my own emotes then export them to the game.

[Solitaire]

Still had the rar file from installing them recently, so I'll put it up for download. Just extract the file into the Horizons\resources_override folder and start the game. The emote text for hiss and selfexam plus the additional emotes are credited to Swythe according to a comment line in the files.

http://home.comcast.net/~jd-chris/Emote.zip